My sound is REALLY quiet. :(

My apologies if this has been answered somewhere on the forum already. I tried doing a search and didn't see it.

My husband and I bought a "new" computer (new to us, but used) earlier this week, and it's great, except for a couple of things. One of them being the sound. The sound is working, but not very well. I have all the settings turned up to their highest and still can hardly hear anything out of my speakers (which I had form my last computer, so I know they work).

The guy I bought the computer from said he had just put a new sound card in and it looks to be an SD Audigy, which I know nothing about. It looks as though all the drivers are loaded and up to date, so I'm not sure what the issue could be. I tried plugging the speakers into every possible jack in the computer and the one they are plugged into currently is the only one I get any sound out of, so that's not the problem. Any help I can get is much appreciated!

Thanks so much!

:heart Abby

 

You might need a new speaker set for your soundcard with an external power supply> The old speakers are just not handling the low output from the soundcard.
HTH
Robert

 

Thanks for the reply, Robert! So, how do I go about figuring out if I for sure need new speakers?

 

You could also test using a set of ear buds or headphones. If you get LOUD sound through them, then chances are it's the speakers.

 

They are self-powered, but I know they work, because they worked fine on my old system and it would just be weird if I unplugged them from one computer and two minutes later, they didn't work plugged into the new one. Ok, I just plugged a pair of powered speakers in and the sound was indeed louder... MUCH louder. So, does that basically mean that my self-powered ones don't work with this sound card? That is very sad.

Thanks for the help though and let me know if there is any way of me making the self-powered speaker work with this new computer. Thanks again!

:heart Abby

 

Thanks! I already have powered speakers that I have been using that work decently (although I do miss my other ones), but now I am having another sound related issue, so I thought I'd just keep this thread going instead of starting a whole new one, so I hope somebody finds this who can help.

My family is scattered around the country (and actually the world right now) and we have been talking a lot via Skype. When I talk to my sister, we don't have any difficulties, but when I talk to my dad, it will be fine for a while and then all of a sudden, the sound just cuts out completely. He can hear me, but I can't hear him at all. I used to have problems with my old, slow computer where the sound would break up and be choppy, but this is something else entirely. I can't hear him type, talk, or anything - it's just 100% silent for me, but he can always hear me. As I said, it only does this when I talk to him. He also said he never has issues when talking to other people. So, I had no idea whose end it was on until just now when I realized my sound wasn't working for something else. It seems like my sound is not working on Firefox, but is fine on Internet Explorer. I don't think this has always been the case, but this isn't the first thing that has been not working for me on Firefox that was on my old computer. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

:heart Abby

 

I have a similar problem. It happend to me before and after some messing around, I fixed it. Now I have this problem again and I cant figure out what I did last time heh.
Pretty much they are self powered speakers and they work. I thought it was the sound card but after I fixed the problem that changed my opinion on that. It seems like this problem happens whenever I unplug the speakers and put them in again. Trying to figure this out =)

 

Ok I figured out what my problem was. Maybe yours is the same thing. And by the way I have vista.
Heres what I did:
-Right click the volume icon on the bottom right of the screen and select Playback Devices.
- Double click the speaker icon.
-Go to the levels tab
-Press balance and set everything to 100.

For me the L and the R were at 0 for some reason.